Binary
by MedliR
Summary: A group of four pranksters, calling themselves Pranksters Anonymous, throws the WRO into chaos. A variety of personnel and officials are dragged into the mess, and Reeve does not react well to the uproar that has ensued.


A small bit of humor inspired by the senior prank played at the school where Don'tCallMeBones was teaching. Thanks, Bones! This couldn't have been written without you. -grins and hugs-

Again, if you favorite, please leave a review, no matter how short. Thank you.

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and all derivatives thereof belong to Square Enix.

* * *

The apartment was rather lavish, considering its' owner. But then, he was a bit of a confusing man. Right now, he was in conference. A conference that consisted of himself, three other people, and three crates. Which grunted. And oinked.

The owner of the apartment, a rather tall redhead reclining in a chair, slapped his hands together and rubbed them briskly. "Okay, then! We're all here, so welcome to my place and this meeting of Pranksters Anonymous. You guys are all, essentially, my posse."

One of the other three people in the room, this one a blond male sitting on the sofa, raised an eyebrow. "Your posse?"

"Yup," the redhead responded lazily, tossing his feet up on the coffee table. "Ya want in on this, you'll live with it," he said, leering at his companions. "And I all know ya want in. Else ya wouldn't be here."

The other blonde, also seated on the sofa, rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Oh, just get on with it. What are we doing? And," she wrinkled her nose, "what's in those crates?"

The redhead's tiny smile turned into a full-blown smirk. "Pot-bellied pigs."

"What?" the blond man asked, his voice full of disbelief, but no surprise. It was rather typical of the redhead to come up with something so odd.

The blonde woman shook her head and blinked, while the remaining occupant of the room, a young girl ensconced in a relatively large chair, said and did nothing.

"Pot-bellied pigs. Three of 'em."

"And what are we going to do with them?" the blonde woman asked.

The redhead grinned. "We're each gonna take one - "

"What!" the blond man squawked.

The redhead rolled his eyes. "Relax, they're clean animals. You won't be gettin' your precious clothes dirty. Anyway, as I was sayin' we're gonna each take one, and let 'em loose on random floors in the WRO."

The blond man chuckled, the humor in the situation becoming apparent to him. His eyes glinted with mirth. "I think I like this plan of yours."

"We should number them, though," the blonde woman put in suddenly.

"Number them? Are ya nuts?" the redhead exclaimed, sitting up with a jerk. "The whole point of the whole thing is to make them hunt the pigs down."

"But we need to be able to keep track of them, don't we?" she said, squaring her chin.

"No, we don't!" the redhead replied hotly.

"But-"

"Binary," the young girl said, speaking for the first time. Her three companions turned to look at her, none of them looking as if they comprehended her words.

"Huh?" the redhead asked.

"Binary coded decimal form," she clarified. "A method of computer data storage. Zero, one, two, four, eight, et cetera."

The redhead's face bloomed into a smile and his eyes lit up. "That's sheer genius! Okay," he said, shooting a look at the blonde woman, "we'll number them, but we'll number them one, two, and four."

"Why one, two, and four?" she asked.

"Because they'll go insane looking for three," the blond man said, a wicked grin crossing his lips.

"Bingo!" the redhead said. "Now, where'd I put my black body paint?"

A delicate, feminine blonde eyebrow rose. "You have black body paint?"

"Shut up."

Two hours later, three pot-bellied pigs were released on levels three, fourteen, and thirty-two of the WRO building

* * *

Reeve and Yuffie Tuesti were happily relaxing in Reeve's office. Relaxing was the problematic word, as they were supposed to be working. Working on the piles of papers that had accumulated on Reeve's desk over the weekend, which they took off.

Reeve and Yuffie, however, were ignoring the papers in favor of the bottle of wine also on Reeve's desk. And the plate of strawberries and chocolate Yuffie had produced from somewhere. And the heated kiss they were currently engaged in.

Everything else was ignored. The ringing phones, the computer beeping, Cait's scream of "Oh, my eyes!" Everything, that is, except for the snuffling.

"Reeve, what's that noise?" Yuffie asked, breaking the kiss. "Reeve?"

"I don't hear anything," her husband said, trying to pull her back to the kiss.

Yuffie shrugged and gave in.

Reeve had just slipped one hand under the hem of her shirt when the snuffle turned into a grunt and a chewing noise.

"Wait," Yuffie said, pulling back and stilling Reeve's hands with her own. "I definitely hear something."

Reeve sighed and tried not to roll his eyes. The glare Yuffie gave him signaled that he had been unsuccessful in his attempt. "I don't hear anything, Yuffie, really. Now come on. Forget about it."

"Reeve, I'm a ninja. I'm trained to hear things you can't, and I'm telling you I hear something," Yuffie said sternly.

"All right. What do you hear?"

"Snuffling at first, and now it's grunting and chewing. Is Cait in here again?"

"After running out screaming about his eyes? I don't think so. Besides, Cait doesn't grunt," Reeve said, frowning slightly.

"Well, that's what-" Yuffie's words were cut off by a loud electrical spark and a squeal.

"What the?" Yuffie said, whipping her head around and getting up off of Reeve's lap.

In the middle of the floor near the doorway, right next to Reeve's prized computer systems, was a mess of soot, scorch marks, bits of wire, and a dazed and dirty pot-bellied pig.

"What on the planet?" Reeve asked quietly, standing up himself.

Yuffie crept towards the pig, but it recovered itself and squealed in alarm, getting up and dashing off into the hallway. Reeve and Yuffie were able to glimpse the writing on its' side as it turned the corner.

"Two?" Reeve said. "What does that mean, that there's another one loose? How on the planet did it get in here?"

Yuffie pursed her lips and rocked back on her heels slightly, clasping her hands behind her head. "Reevie dear, I'd say we're being pranked."

"Pranked? Why would you, oh." Comprehension dawned on Reeve's face. "The numbers. Why number a pig unless you intend to use it to drive people crazy, is that it?"

"Bingo. There's at least two. We're going to have to track them down, I think," Yuffie said, reaching for Conformer, which was conveniently resting against the wall. "Unless you want number two and his buddies to chew up the rest of your building."

"Absolutely not! But Yuffie, isn't Conformer a little harsh?" Reeve asked, looking at his wife's favorite weapon with a slightly pale complexion.

Yuffie snorted. "It's fine. I'm going to wrap the edges, see?" she said, pulling out a roll of cloth tape from a pocket Reeve hadn't even known she had and proceeding to wrap it around Conformer's points. "What?" she grinned, looking at Reeve. "Envisioning little piggy guts or something?"

Reeve blanched further and made a noise of disgust.

Yuffie burst out laughing. "Reeve, come on, you've shot people and monsters before! This is an interesting time to pick to be squeamish about killing something, not that I'm all for murdering pigs or anything."

"Yes, Yuffie, I know, but this is a little defenseless pig. It can't possibly do that much harm and it's probably scared to death," Reeve said, moving over to his electronics cabinets and pulling out a length of wire, fastening it into a lasso of sorts.

Yuffie grinned at him. "Scared to death. Of us. Okay. You keep telling yourself that he's just harmless. Bet you can't catch a pig with that," she said, shouldering the now-wrapped Conformer and heading out the door.

Three hours later, she had to forcibly restrain him from stabbing the pig they had just caught via knock-out by Conformer, this one labeled number four, after the WRO had suffered three power interruptions and a server crash, two stuck elevators and a sprinkler system malfunction, and the explosion of the latest Cait Sith model.

* * *

Pig number two was currently being restrained by Cloud and Cid in one of the grounds maintenance sheds outside. It had decided to try and chew through a panel Cid had chosen to repair off the Shera. After much swearing and an attempt to make barbecued shish kebabs, he and Cloud, who had been drug into the mess after nearly getting hit in the face with the Venus Gospel, had cornered the pig and deposited it in the shed. As they were on their way to the shed, they spotted Tseng and Rude.

Tseng and Rude were on the trail of the pig labeled number one. It was proving nearly impossible to track down. Every time they thought they were close, they ended up farther away from it then they had been in the first place. Right now, they were in a hallway on floor fourteen. Rufus had insisted he had seen the pig, and that it had turned left and entered this hallway. Tseng, while intensely loyal to the young President, still couldn't shake the feeling that Rufus' position in front of the stairwell, not to mention his adamance that the pig was definitely not anywhere nearby and Elena's unusual absence, had been suspicious.

They were just about to enter another doorway, when a noise from the stairwell caught their attention. It sounded like a woman's voice, cooing to something. Glancing at each other, Tseng with a cocked eyebrow and Rude completely impassive, they investigated the source of the noise, and found it to be Shera, on her knees in the stairwell cajoling a pig with a black number one painted on its side.

This time, when Tseng and Rude looked at each other, it was with expressions of agreement and determination on their faces. In unison, they turned around and went back the way they came, now intent on tracking down one President Rufus Shinra.

* * *

"Looks like it's down to you and me. 'Laney and Rufus got captured."

"Indeed. That was incredibly foolish of them."

"This is great, though, isn't it? Look at them. They've got one, two, and four locked up in that shed and they're still lookin' for number three. Wish I knew how they're doin' it, though. All that runnin' aroung isn't makin' much sense to me."

The small figure by the redhead's side consulted a handheld computer tied into what was left of the WRO's computer network. "I believe they are organizing search parties and dividing the building into a grid in order to establish a pattern."

The redhead looked at her for a moment before bursting into raucous laughter and collapsing helplessly to the floor. "A search pattern? You're serious? Oh, this is too much. This is the best prank ever. And seeing Tuesti flip? Just icing on the cake. I am so glad little piggies didn't get to the security feeds."

"While I will admit Commissioner Tuesti's nervous breakdown was, unexpected and interesting, I did not realize we would be causing so much damage," she said, looking down at the redhead with a disapproving glare.

"Hey, hey, it's really just minor stuff. Ya can't tell me that this hasn't been fun."

The small figure considered her companion's words for a moment, before allowing herself a small smile.

* * *

"I'll kill you all!"

Yuffie frantically motioned for Cid to help her restrain her irate husband. Murdering Rufus and Elena wouldn't help the matter at all.

"Reeve, honey," Yuffie said, trying to use her best soothing tone as Cid carefully grasped one of the Commissioner's arms, "I don't think that threatening them will make them tell us where number three is."

"It's been three hours since we found number one, Yuffie!" Reeve rounded on her, pulling away from Cid and shooting the man an angry look. "We've looked all over the building. It has to be somewhere we can't easily access. Just think of the damage it could be doing! Oh, my poor Cait..." Reeve trailed off, looking forlornly at the chewed catbot.

Yuffie patted Reeve's arm, trying to calm him down, when Rufus and Elena snickered. Well, Elena snickered. For Rufus, it was more like a snort, as he was obviously trying not to laugh. Reeve went red and was about to lunge at them again, when an obnoxious screech from the outdoor PA system made him pause.

"Attention, suckers! You have number one, number two, and number four."

"Reno!" Tseng exclaimed in a low tone, shooting Elena a look that said he was very disappointed in her for siding with the prankster.

"Rufus, I'm actually really surprised that you went along with this," Cloud said, eyeing the young President warily. "I knew you'd changed, but I hadn't thought you'd changed this much."

"You are currently searching for pig number three. These pigs, though, my dear suckers, were numbered in binary," Reno continued, safe in his haven of who-knew-where from the black mutters currently cursing his name and existence.

"Binary!" Cid exclaimed. "How's that mother know enough to do something like that?"

His answer came in the form of the next voice to come over the PA system.

Calmly, solemnly, Shelke informed the irritated group in the yard in front of the shed that "Pig number three does not exist."


End file.
